DARLINGTON IS THE PITS

Is Darlington over yet? Jeff Burton seems to have a deal with the
weatherman when it comes to racing at Darlington.  He got his second rain-shortened
win in a row there Sunday.  The remnants of hurricane Dennis were just enough to keep
the track dry enough so that NASCAR® couldn’t get the race track dry in time to get any
racing done before dark.

We had the same problem with rain here in Nashville in July for the
Craftsman Truck Series race.  But in that situation, the race didn’t get started
before the rains came.  So the 2:30 pm start time ended up being 8:06 pm. Luckly
thing that Nashville Speedway has lights.

I hear that Darlington is thinking of putting in a lighting system.
  That’s great. But what they really need to do is fix the pit road(s).

It’s crazy to think that after 50 years, they still have front- and
backstretch pits. The disadvantages to the competitors are hashed out every time they go
to a track with backstretch pits. And once in a blue moon, a driver actually wins from the
backstretch, but it takes freaky circumstances for it to happen (e.g., the leader wrecking
leaving the backstretch-pitting, second-place car with the
lead on the last lap).

NASCAR® could take responsibility for the pit situation as well.
  They could go into Darlington or Bristol and tell the drivers something like this:
"See the front pit entrance in turn 4? See the back pit exit in turn 3? Those no
longer exist.  Everyone will enter the pits in turn two and exit the pits in turn
one."

If NASCAR® didn’t want to do it that way, they could add 10 or so
seconds to everyone stopping on the frontstretch.  They’ve already set that precedent
at Sears Point where they hold cars pitting in the "Gilligan’s Island" part of
the track a few seconds so that they don’t have an advantage over the cars pitting in the
main pits.

Or they could even announce that the pit road speed limit applied to
the whole track during cautions. The point is, NASCAR® could have done something about
this situation a long time ago if they’d wanted to.  Add to that the fact that
International Speedway Corporation, which owns Darlington, is pretty much controlled by
the France family and you have to wonder what’s taking them so
long to solve the problem.

I realize there are problems with the three solutions I’ve offered
above, but in the interest of fairness, something needs to be done. Obviously the optimum
situation would be for ISC to spend the money to renovate Darlington so that there’s only
one pit road. That should be their number one priority; not adding seats, skyboxes, or
lights.